


Glory Box

by Mz_Mallow



Series: Cockatrice [4]
Category: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes
Genre: Backstory, Coming of Age, Disabled Character, Dystopia, Family Feels, Food, Headcanon, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Weird Biology, archive warnings will apply in later chapters, cw ableism but only from bad guys, not those yellow guys from the memes, they're minions in the old broad sense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2019-10-27 12:04:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17766464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mz_Mallow/pseuds/Mz_Mallow
Summary: Life in the Overlord's factory isn't easy, but Gaillard is doing great: he loves his family, he loves his work, he loves his best friend. And then everything starts to unravel.





	1. breakfast

**Author's Note:**

> The final chapter of this fic contains a character list (with a family tree diagram), glossaries of French words and lore terminology used, and other notes.

Immersed in the comfortable, soft darkness of half-sleep, he heard his mother’s voice, warm and low.

“Rise and shine, Gaillard.”

Waking consciousness dawning slowly, he stretched languorously. Then he heard his brother’s voice, the volume matched to his mother’s voice but the syllables curtly clipped.

“Get up already, Yikes. You’ll make us late.”

Gaillard’s brother was strong and confident, and he could make his crest wiggle. In Gaillard’s eyes he was the coolest. With his eyes still closed and thoughts still unfocused, he smiled into the friendly void.

His mother’s voice responded, in a sharp whisper unintentionally just within his hearing. “Don’t call him that.”

His brother’s voice again, whisper louder that his mother’s. “Why’d you let him back in here? He’ll get spoiled.”

“He was too excited. Couldn’t fall asleep.” Her voice kept an even volume, but her tone had gone tight.

“He could’ve slept with me then. Or with Antoine… you know, as long as he doesn’t kick or anything.”

“There’s room here.” Her tone stayed controlled, but the few words were heavy with maternal authority.

A beat of stillness.

Then Gaillard’s ankle was grasped, the grip firm but painless, and his body was yanked downwards, sheet bunching under his back as he slid.

His eyes popped open. His vision was filled with his brother’s smiling face, crooked teeth and green crest and mismatched organic-and-robotic eyes.

“You gonna sleep right through your big day?”

Full consciousness broke over Gaillard. He gasped with a sharp, high-pitched sound, like he was about to sneeze; and then he was up, upright, out of bed, scrambling around the room, followed by the sound of his brother’s affectionate chuckling.

The light in the room was low—brighter than the level mandated for nighttime, but darker than the incandescent bulbs would be set for full daytime. The bunks along the walls were completely vacated—someone had been coughing last night, the sound muffled but frequent and rough, but if they hadn’t managed to drag themself to work they must have gone to quarantine. The family beds were almost all vacated too—Gaillard really had overslept. His mother, standing beside the bed, was dressed in her full work-clothes. Sitting beside the indentation his body had left in the nest of blankets, his little siblings Stéphanie and Édouard babbled to each other, their flow of nonsense sometimes gelling into scraps of melody they had heard at the assembly line. In the next family bed over, there was an infant squalling—then it quieted and another started up; two sisters were trying to appease five fussy babies using four breasts. Over it all, mounted high on the wall, the portrait of the current employee of the month watched over the breadth of the room with two-dimensional, smug lidded eyes.

Gaillard buttoned his shirt, his avian left hand moving dexterously while his human fingers fumbled in his excited hurry—so many buttons! His first real work-shirt! He tugged on his overalls, stumbling over a pant-leg and leaning against the bed to steady himself. And then, into the pocket on his work-shirt, he slipped the object that marked him as a grown-up big kid: his identification card.

The evening before, his brother had gone with him to the office of their House’s overseeing henchman to pick it up. The human, Sean, had smiled at him with apparent genuine pride, and Gaillard had basked in the attention.

“See you first thing tomorrow, right, little Guy?”

On the way from the henchmens’ office to the House’s sleeping quarters, Gaillard had fondled the card, the prize he had earned by growing up. As a child, he’d looked at his mother’s identification card many times. She’d used it to help him recognize letters, preparing him to learn how to read, even though she didn’t have the knowledge to teach him fully herself. He would read the letters of her name out loud.

“G…” _The same first letter as his name!_ “… L… O… R… Y.” He’d take a deep breath, puffing out his chest for show, and read the rest in an unbroken rush. “L-O-W-S-I-D-E—B-O-X-M-A-N.”

The card also contained a series of stripes, different colors marking the roles Glory had worked in the Factory. And over in the corner, her sex marker: H.

Gaillard peeked at his own card, hurrying to match his brother’s longer stride. _G___d Highside-Boxman_ , then an expanse of white yearning for color, and then his own sex marker: jC.

He grinned up at the ceiling. He looked down at the card again, reading more closely this time. Stopped dead in his tracks. Frowned.

“This isn’t my name,” he said, holding the card out at face-level.

His brother didn’t break stride, didn’t turn to look. “Of course it’s not. Your name is Yikes, but nobody knows it but me and Antoine.”

“I’m serious!” Uncertainty turned to frustration, making Gaillard’s voice high and whiny.

His brother stopped, waited for him. Dropped to a crouch and held out his hand for the card. He looked it over, then gave Gaillard a reassuring wink from his organic eye. “This? Is normal. The Overlord just gave you a work name. Happened to me too.”

He handed the card back, and Gaillard squinted at the name on it. _Gaylord_. So he was _Gaylord_ now? It felt uneasy in his gut, but if it was from the Overlord then it must be good. He slipped the card into his pocket, to think about later.

His brother pulled his own identification card from his pocket and handed it over. “Take a look at this.”

Seeing the name, Gaillard wrinkled his nose in confusion. His upper lip drew up into a sneer as he tried to pronounce it. “Dreee?”

“Dré,” his brother corrected. “I guess an accent would be a waste of resources.” He gave a sour bark of a laugh. “You’d think it’d be just as easy to stick with André, but…” He pursed his lips with a little farty popping sound. “Whatever the Overlord thinks is right… right?” He shrugged. “Antoine got a new name too. He’s Tony in the office.”

But Gaillard’s eyes had run to the opposite side of the card, to the sex marker, looking for the C to match his own jC. André had been wearing a tie during the ceremony earlier that year. But instead he saw an E.

He turned the card around, held it towards André wordlessly, holding it so one talon pointed to the sex marker. He felt a little hurt. It wasn’t so strange for it to change, maybe—at least, he’d known of people changing pronouns—but shouldn’t his own brother have told him?

André saw where Gaillard’s finger was pointing, and the lower eyelid of his organic eye twitched. He got his face under control, but not before Gaillard had seen a shadow of disappointment, of bitterness, cross over it.

“Nothing’s changed,” André had said, hoarse. He had snatched his identification card away and jammed it back into his pocket.

Now, this morning, Gaillard patted the pocket holding his identification card once again, to double-check it was there. He put on his shoes—these were just for the walk over, he would put on new, strong shoes when he arrived—and hooked his canteen on his belt.

He raced for the door towards the factory. André sauntered after him. Glory turned away from them and reached for the hands of her two smallest children, urging them out of the bed, taking them to stay by her side through her workday.

But before he exited the door, Gaillard skidded to a halt, spun on his heel, and ran back through the room, towards the bathrooms.

“Hurry up!” André roared after him—but his voice carried the hint of a smile, no real anger.

The two sisters with the five babies shushed him in unison.

The light in the bathrooms was markedly brighter than in the sleeping quarters, and reflected off an expanse of tiles. Gaillard’s left eye—the eye overlapped by a patch of white that covered the left corner of his forehead and scalp, giving him a tuft of white hair to match the white patch that enveloped all the feathers on his left arm shoulder-to-elbow—the eye that was pink-and-red, as if in imitation of the red mechanical eye that was common to all adult boxmen—winked involuntarily at the glare.

Gaillard ran past the shower room, where the night shift crew was washing off the sweat of a night’s work. The adult men were barrel-chested from years of heavy lifting, and some had thin green mustaches or beards; most of the adult women had heavily rounded or sagging breasts from nursing babies; the other adults had any of those features, or none. Besides those characteristics, all of their sexes were indistinguishable to a viewer, even when they were fully naked.

On the way back he stopped at the sinks beside someone he recognized: Dominique, who slept in one of the bunks near Glory’s family’s bed.

“Oh, hey Gaillard,” thon greeted him. “Big day today, _hein?_ Seems like yesterday you were little. _Félicitations!_ Work with zeal.”

His excitement reaching a fever pitch, Gaillard couldn’t manage a proper polite response; he just nodded at thon, eyes and grin huge. He splashed water onto his face, hearing Dominique laugh as cold droplets landed on thon’s arm. Then he ran out to rejoin André.

When the two brothers entered the dining hall they found Antoine already there among the other diners, trying to eat enough to have the energy to work through the first half of the day. His mouth wasn’t really shaped for smiling, but his eyes made up for it, greeting his brothers with a sparkle of welcome.

André collected a tray and his breakfast: oatmeal, with mealworms added for protein. A proper adult’s breakfast. Wanting to be just like him, Gaillard spooned up a bowl of oatmeal for himself—but after a moment of indecision, added crushed groundnuts instead of mealworms. He hesitated a moment more at the counter—he didn’t want to look childish or greedy, but in recent days he had been _so hungry_ , a hunger that drove him to eat until he’d downed double the amount he’d have called enough a few months earlier, a hunger so deep that he would eat until his stomach was full and still feel unsatisfied and dream of rich food. He piled in more nuts, and raisins, and took an apple. As he sat down at the table between his brothers, André looked over at his tray of food and gave a subtle, satisfied nod.

The door to the kitchen swung open and someone exited—their sister, Gaillard noted with mild surprise. He’d known he’d see her working the kitchen soon—pregnant women usually were shifted to kitchen duty, to give them uninterrupted access to whatever food they craved, even if the work didn’t allow them much more time off their feet—but was she so far along already? And where were her other children, the twins from before? Back inside the kitchen, watched by another member of the staff, maybe; they weren’t really big enough to be running back and forth beside her, but they must have gotten too big to be carried on her back all day. She and her husband were raising their family in the Highside, but with their work schedules conflicting with his mother’s, Gaillard hadn’t seen much of them lately.

She carried a pitcher of water, held up tight against her chest.

As she approached the table, André nodded to her. “G’morning, Celine.”

“Good morning, Twins,” she replied, with sincerity despite the apparent irony of the last word.

Boxmen children were often born in pairs; but André and Antoine had been truly twins at birth, as identical as two light-grenades rolling off the same assembly line. They’d nursed heartily and grown healthy and fat. But when they’d started to teethe, the troubles had started. André had gummed cheerfully on pieces of chilled apple or carrot, swaddled on Glory’s back as she’d worked the assembly line. But Antoine had flinched away from hard food, and fussed and fussed, until Glory had had to leave him behind in the sleeping quarters with a caretaker so that the baby’s cries wouldn’t disturb the other workers. And his teeth…

The artificial marriage of human and avian genetics wasn’t tidy, and that showed up in multiple ways; one being in the teeth. Some boxmen had a full set like a human, but sharp and snaggly—to Glory’s relief, Gaillard had followed André in having teeth like this. Some had gaps, ‘missing’ teeth—as Glory herself did. But Antoine’s teeth had grown in so unruly that his jaw had been knocked askew, so that it clicked and ached when he talked or chewed. She’d fed him at her breast as long as was feasible, but as the twins reached the age for solid food, André grew strong while Antoine struggled and wasted.

And then, as they had reached the age for crawling, playing, running, Antoine had gotten no relief. André had grown energetic, tough, loving to roughhouse with the other boxmen children; but for Antoine, any bump or bruise put an intolerable ache into his bones, made it harder for him to move at all.

He never would have made a forge worker like his father, or like André. Even at tinkering and tweaking, or at the assembly line, he couldn’t get his arms to move fast enough to match the other workers.

Unthrifty.

And it was for this reason—among many others—that Glory was glad she had moved to her husband’s House, instead of having him move to the Lowside as her sisters’ husbands had done. Because when Sean had told her to take her ill child to the Doctor, when some marrow-deep intuition had made her refuse and bare her teeth and clutch him closer, he had not pressed the issue. Another henchman might have. Maybe Sean had assumed the child would die naturally, as many did, and wouldn’t consume a significant amount of resources until then.

But Antoine hadn’t died. He had grown clever, and warm. But he hadn’t grown into the type of worker the Overlord needed.

In desperation, Glory had taken him to the kitchen, in some vain hope that wielding knives and pots and pans might be more manageable than wielding screwdrivers and hammers. And another henchman—Alice, overseer of the Loft, master of the kitchen, student of new technology and harbinger of a new era of production in the Factory, she of the long calculating pauses and hidden plans—had seen him, and had held her finger to the zeitgeist, and made a pitch to the Overlord. _I need more computer programmers._ She’d presented Antoine with a series of tests of logic, of observation and of diligence, and he had passed. And just like that, Antoine had been saved, and Antoine had been hers.

Now the Twins looked like an exercise in contrast: both with the same strongly-crested light green hair, both with the same avian physical features in the same places; but André broad-shouldered and robust, with the round cybernetic ears that marked him as a regular worker in the forge and the red cybernetic eye that marked him as an adult worker of the boxmen; and Antoine, slight and hollow-cheeked and already bearing the hunchback that usually marked boxmen of advanced age, unaugmented by cybernetics.

“Good morning, Gaillard,” Celine said. He smiled up at her, swallowed, and returned the greeting. He’d always been a little bit intimidated by his older sisters; they were so much more grown-up than him. When he had been learning how to walk, they had been learning how to work; and as he was taking the first steps towards being a full adult member of the Factory, they had already become fully-fledged adults with husbands and children of their own.

Celine scanned the room, quick and surreptitious, making sure the other diners weren’t watching, checking at a height above the heads of boxmen to make sure there was no human in the room. She shifted the water pitcher in her arms, reached the talons of one hand between her swollen breasts… and pulled out a banana.

She split the peel, took out the soft white fruit inside and broke it in two, and dropped the peel back under her shirt. She held both halves out in one hand, gesturing: one half for Gaillard, one half for Antoine.

Antoine gave his head a little shake. With eyes projecting concern, he gestured to her belly, and towards the kitchen.

Gaillard’s half-banana had already been shoved into his mouth. He broke off the bit he hadn’t already devoured, sheepish over his greed in the face of Celine’s generosity and Antoine’s restraint, and held it back out to Celine.

She answered Antoine’s unspoken protest. “We’ve got plenty of food. I want you to have it.”

She shot a smile at her younger, most impulsive brother. “You too, Gaillard. You deserve a treat for your first day.”

Antoine put a hand to his chest, eyes full of gratitude, and took the banana from her. Gaillard, relieved, chowed down.

Celine held out her hand for each of the brothers’ canteens in turn, filling them from the pitcher she carried. Then she bustled off to serve the other diners, the last stragglers before they all scattered to the forge, to the workshop, to the assembly line.

And to the computer technology office. Antoine took his leave.

André and Gaillard continued on to the forge.


	2. the forge

The noise, the heat, the sheer energy of the forge rolled over Gaillard as he followed André in through the heavy, reinforced doors. He took a moment to drink in the sight of the room—the rows of anvils, the rise and fall of arms gripping hammers, the searing glow of furnaces and hot metal. Beyond that, showers of sparks from cutting and welding; his pink eye squinted shut again at the sudden piercing bursts of light.

Just beside the door, safety equipment stood along the wall in regiment. Following a tilt of André’s chin, he walked down the orderly row of steel-toed sturdy leather boots until he reached the very end, where the small sizes were kept. Hopping on one foot and then finally sitting on the ground, he tried on pairs until one fit comfortably. He stashed his own shoes in a cubby.

Now for ear protection. In contrast to the seemingly-interminable row of boots, there were few sets of earmuffs, and most of them in small sizes; these were for the young trainees, like him. If he proved skillful, once he grew to adult size he would get his own set of cybernetic ears; then he’d be able to turn his sense of hearing up and down whenever it was useful.

Finally, he dug through a bin of fresh, dry cotton gloves. These were clipped to his belt, around the back by his canteen.

Proud to feel the weight of the basic kit, mind skipping into the future to wonder about the feel of the aprons and leather gloves and facemasks the welders wore, he turned around.

Sean the henchman was standing beside André, towering above him by about two feet (although André’s crest, if counted, closed the gap by a few inches.) His broad face carved into an easy smile, Sean reached out a meaty, callous-roughened hand. Gaillard blinked at the hand for a second or two; then, seeing André give a subtle pat at his own shirt-pocket, he dug his identification card out of his pocket and handed it over.

Sean’s eyes crinkled at him, and Gaillard smiled back. Then Sean looked at the card… and snorted, squinting with a suppressed laugh.

Gaillard’s smile fell away. He pulled away one of his earmuffs.

“What…?” he asked. He felt like whispering it, but the background noise forced him to raise his voice.

André’s eyes widened at Gaillard’s audacity. A junior member of the forge, questioning the overseeing henchman on his first day!

But Sean didn’t seem perturbed. He seemed almost bashful, and moved his massive shoulders in an easy shrug. “ _Gaylord_ ,” he said. “It’s a fine name. Or it was when the Overlord was young, I guess.” He stroked his beard. “But nowadays… eh… it sounds just a little funny.”

The insides of Gaillard’s chest squeezed painfully. _A funny name._ It had been different when his older brothers gave him a funny name, just for the two of them to use; he may have play-protested many times, but he knew from the beginning that it meant he was special to them, and was secretly pleased. _But why would the Overlord embarrass him in front of everyone?_

Sean saw Gaillard’s shoulders sag and his eyebrows knit with dismay.

“Ah, naw. Don’t take it like that.” He bent closer, so he could be heard clearly without raising his voice. “Tell you what. I’ve always called you _Guy_. Because I know the name your momma gave you has… ten letters or something, but I’ve never been able to really figure out what they are. So you’ll be _Guy_ here too. Okay?”

The personal attention made Gaillard feel proud and pinned-down at the same time. His heart beat hard.

“But the Overlord…” He formed the words more than spoke them aloud.

Sean caught the meaning. “Who’s here on the floor? Me or him?”

Gaillard gulped and nodded. _Henchmen were so bold._ “Yes, sir.”

“Okay then,” Sean said. “Or… What’s that thing you all say to each other in the Highside? You know what I mean? _Daiquiri?_ ”

At this question Gaillard’s heart beat harder, until he could feel the pulse of panic just behind his eyes. _Was this a trick?_

His mother loved the Old Language—the language that the very first boxmen had spoken, before the Overlord had found them and given them purpose. Glory had fallen in love with a man from the Highside, but she had also fallen in love with the Highside itself: with its warm and communal culture, and with their use of words and names from the Old Language. She had spent time with Avril—one of the first four boxmen, and the last surviving—before the elder had finally passed away. She had even named one of her eldest daughters—Celine’s twin— _Avril_ , after her.

But Gaillard’s mother had warned him never to speak a word of the Old Language to a human. Not to any of the henchmen… and _certainly_ never within the hearing of the Overlord.

And so he was stuck: disobey his mother’s instructions, or disobey a direct order from a henchman—there was no way out but to transgress. His eyes darted in his older brother’s direction. The green color had risen dark in his cheeks, and while his face was superficially stoic, underneath it André looked almost as lost as Gaillard felt.

Gaillard pulled in a deep breath through his nose, tried to steady himself, and spoke as clearly as he could.

“ _D’accord._ Sir.”

Sean waved Gaillard’s identification in a casual, triumphant gesture—“That’s it! Dah-CORE.”—and handed it back to him.

Gaillard closed his talons around the card and slid it back into his pocket, trying not to let his hand shake.

Apparently attributing Gaillard’s fear to first-day nerves, Sean gave him an easy, encouraging wink. “You’re gonna do fine, Guy.”

He straightened up and turned back to the forge, to the rest of the boxmen, to his duties as overseer.

Gaillard staggered to André’s side. André gave him a supportive squeeze on the shoulder, and let him stand for a moment until his nerves steadied. Then he led him deeper into the forge.

In time, Gaillard would learn a variety of skills that would allow him to take up jobs all over the forge, as needs ebbed and flowed with incoming orders for weapons (and more recently, for robots): tempering and shaping and drilling and welding, wielding anvil and tongs and hammer and chisel, and more. But for now, he was a junior assistant: there to learn by observing, and to fetch and return tools to facilitate his brother’s work.

Leading him from station to station, André suddenly stopped and pointed. “Who’s that?” he asked.

For a brief moment, Gaillard thought that his brother might have actually forgotten someone’s name, and he felt a pulse of pride at being asked to help. Then he saw where his brother was pointing, who he was pointing towards, and realized that André had been looking out for him once again.

Gaillard let out a piercing shriek of delight that nearly lifted him out of his heavy steel-toed boots. “Henry!”

Around the forge, heads perked up at the shout. Other Highside-boxmen, familiar with young Gaillard’s excitability and wild expressiveness, glanced up and then calmly returned to their work. Boxmen of other houses craned their necks, trying to see if someone had dropped hot slag on their foot.

Henry and Gaillard had been fast friends as small children; their mothers worked together at the assembly line, their fathers worked together in the forge, and they played and ate and slept side-by-side in the Highside. But when Henry’s mother had died in childbirth, Henry’s father had returned to his own House of birth—the Loft—and taken Henry with him. The later loss of Gaillard’s father had severed their connection even more. The boys hadn’t seen each other in years.

Across the room, Henry’s head perked up. His eyes met Gaillard’s and he grinned, joy brighter than the yellow-hot metal being pounded on anvils all around him.

Henry had taken after his father. They both had the look typical of Loft-Boxmen, the look sometimes called _en janvier_ after Janvier—who had been another of the first four boxmen. They were small in stature (even shorter than the average boxman), with mostly-human features and small crests; but the color from their turaco DNA came through strongly. Both had dark grassy-green hair; Henry had a sprinkle of blue-black freckles across the bridge of his nose, and blue-black fingernails, the color running over his hands and speckling his arms up to the elbows.

Gaillard started running.

“WALK,” came the shouted command from both André and Henry’s father in unison. Gaillard forced his feet into a more controlled pace, his shoulders thrown back like his feet could hardly bear to wait for the rest of his body.

Henry leapt up to him, away from the equipment, and threw his arms around Gaillard. Gaillard hugged him back with a force that lifted Henry onto his toes.

“Careful, there,” Henry’s father said, smiling under his droopy mustache, adjusting an ear to hear any words spoken. “Good to see you again, Gaillard.”

André, strolling behind, caught up, exchanged nods of greeting with Henry’s father. “We’ve been keeping this a secret for months. Ever since you started here, Henry,” he said to the boys. “You know how gossipy the Highside is? I had a hard time of it. Terrible.” Despite his complaining words, his satisfaction shone through his easy posture and genuine smile.

Gaillard and Henry grinned at each other, practically bouncing. Where to even start?

André headed off the conversation before it could snare them all. “ _Alors._ Plenty of time to catch up later,” he said. “Come on, Gaillard. We’ve got more to do today than gabbing.”

Henry looked to him, to Gaillard, and to his father. “Sleepover? Tonight? In the Loft?” he piped up.

His father gave a nod and shrug. “Okay with me.”

Gaillard looked to André.

“As long as you don’t stare at the sky so long you forget to sleep,” André said.

Gaillard puffed out his cheeks and gave his brother a glare. So what if the Highside didn’t have many windows. _So what if the windows it did have hadn’t ever given him an understanding of how amazingly huge the sky was when there was no roof over your head. So what if the first time he had walked outdoors, a tiny little child, he had stared upwards with his mouth open until Antoine had sidled by and, with a sly wink, had told him not to drown in a rainstorm. That didn’t mean he had to be reminded of it all the time. That definitely didn’t mean his friends had to be reminded of it._ He shrugged off his annoyance, as a new thought, a worry, entered his head.

“But… Ma?” Gaillard asked, voice pinging with hope. “We should ask…?”

“I’m sure she’ll be okay with it too,” André said.

Gaillard and Henry clasped at each other’s arms one last time. And then Gaillard had to leave.

“Focus,” André said to him as they made their way to a free anvil. His eyes squeezed shut, tight, for a moment. When he spoke again, there was a pinched, dark tone in his voice. “This place can be dangerous… You already know that. And we have a long day ahead.”

* * * * *

That night, in the Loft, Gaillard and Henry shared a bunk side-by-side. Henry’s dad had shushed their chatter for the third time, and they’d finally quieted down.

Gaillard absently rubbed the fingers of his avian hand together. He had an annoying small blister on the inside of a thumb where he’d gripped hammers gracelessly. He also had a satisfying soreness in his avian upper-arm where he’d worked an underdeveloped muscle. He’d build up strength and calluses soon enough.

Gaillard had turned on his side; his back was towards the rest of the room, the other beds full of sleeping Loft-Boxmen, and the far wall covered with tall windows—while he would never admit it, the hollowness of the sky beyond them still gave him a creepy feeling.

Henry was lying flat on his back. “Are you okay?” He whispered upward.

Gaillard shifted closer. “What?”

Henry’s eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling of the bunk. His voice was muted—not just in an effort to avoid disturbing the other sleepers yet again, but with hesitance.

“Your first day.” Henry blinked at the blankness feet above his face. “Your Da.”

Gaillard remembered his father: a jovial man with a neatly-trimmed mustache that tickled when he’d plant a kiss on your cheek, or blow a breath against your belly and go _thbbbpt_ to make you laugh. “I’ve missed you, _mon soleil_ ,” he would bellow as he swept into the Highside, smelling of his day in the forge, and wrap his arms around his wife and each of his children in turn. At that time, Celine and Avril had been past their Fledging ceremony but not yet married. Stéphanie and Édouard had not yet been born; Glory hadn’t even realized she was pregnant until after it happened. Antoine was just starting in the computer programming office, and Gaillard was still a small child. André had been training at his father’s side for a few years.

It was sheer dumb luck that André hadn’t been beside him when the accident happened.

It was sheer dumb luck that it had happened at all, was the official word. Or a momentary miscalculation. While oil quenching. An explosion.

André had been kept overnight by the Doctor; not because he had been injured himself, but because he couldn’t stop shaking. Even when he was released the next morning, he had stumbled back to the Highside pale and distant.

Gaillard hadn’t been allowed to see his father during his last moments. His mother had.

She had been approached at the assembly line by someone from the forge. They hadn’t had to say a word before she had seen their face, choked out a sob behind her hand, and ran out. The forge-worker had led Gaillard back to the Highside sleeping quarters where he had waited—a very long time—patted and pitied by anyone else who entered the room. When Glory finally returned, eyes red-rimmed and hollow, she had fallen straight into the family bed, alone.

Gaillard hadn’t been able to grasp what had happened to his father. He had been _there_ , and then suddenly he was _not there_.

But he had felt the full weight of seeing his mother, always so full of energy and determination, laying still and dark in front of his eyes. He had approached her, frightened at her lifelessness. She hadn’t turned to him when he called. Maybe she had turned her ears off. Or maybe she did hear him but didn’t have a corner of her soul untouched by grief to offer him in that moment.

He had snatched a pillow from the bed and run down the hallway, possessed by a feeling he couldn’t contain, shrieking. And then he had beat the pillow against the walls, against the floor, digging his fingers into its soft give, tearing at it with his teeth. The seams had given way, and the hallway had been filled with a drift of white feathers. Someone had chased him down, patted over his arm to make sure none of the feathers had been torn from his own body, and carried him back to the sleeping quarters.

The henchman had appeared then. Not Sean, not yet, but whoever had been in his place, a man whose name Gaillard had since forgotten.

He’d brought a message from the Overlord. There had been some pretty words, long and without substance or meaning, not to a child. And then the last part: _You have lost your father in my service. So I am a father to you now._

With the message there was a gift, especially from the Overlord, for him. It was a glass full of a sweet concoction of bananas and milk and sugar and chocolate. It had been the most delicious thing Gaillard had ever tasted, even though after drinking it he had slept for a full day and night only waking once to vomit.

A day after that, his mother had been back on her feet, and together they had gone back to the assembly line.

In the dark, Gaillard gave Henry a brave smile. “Of course I’m okay,” he whispered.

Henry voiced no reply, but Gaillard thought he could feel him smile with relief.


	3. cockfight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to check the final chapter of this fic for Glossary, Character List, and Notes that will be updated with every new chapter. (And an awesome diagram that a friend/reader made!)
> 
> [Minor edits made: typos fixed; also given age range of Henry adjusted older (while re-reading in prep for writing more I realized I had set Henry as older than Gaillard in an earlier chapter... Aie, the hazards of juggling multiple stories over a long timeframe.]

Gaillard loved staying in the Loft. The Highside had been starting to feel cramped and uneasy, but he’d never been able to pin recognition to that feeling until spending several days away from it. At the realization, surprise and guilt pricked him—he didn’t mean to think poorly of André. He had nothing but admiration for the way André had started watching over him as soon as they had lost their father, even though he had been only an adolescent himself, and already devoted to making sure Antoine was never left out. But ever since André had passed his Fledging ceremony—and still hadn’t courted a wife and started his own family—the relationship between him and their mother had become tense. The once-easy balance of roles between them had started to grate like an overused, off-kilter hinge.

But to focus on the positive—the new setting gave Gaillard space to feel grown-up and independent. Henry’s father was gentle but taciturn; he could always be relied on to give support, but rarely offered it unless it was asked for. And as Gaillard had been hesitant to leave the familiar bed of his childhood for the chilly emptiness of a single bunk, sharing a bed with his best friend was a perfect solution; he could find comfort nestled near the warmth of another’s body without sleeping beside his mother like some small child or admitting weakness to his older brothers.

And every morning, when Gaillard accompanied Henry and his father to the forge, André was there waiting for him… ready to teach him more skills, eager to report on any news from the Highside or the rumor mill.

Henchman Alice was a distant sort of overseer to the Loft. Truth be told, she sort of gave Gaillard the heebie-jeebies; whenever he saw her she seemed to be watching, and thinking, and keeping her thoughts to herself. She tended to speak to her charges one-on-one, trusting them to pass messages along. Gaillard much preferred Henchman Sean’s style, which he’d become accustomed to in the Highside: big booming announcements made to the whole group at once, and a manner that was sometimes easygoing, sometimes clumsy, but always straightforward.

There was another reason Gaillard enjoyed the Loft, even though he wouldn’t have admitted it: the looks of surprise on the faces of the other kids there when he made a scene or committed a _faux pas_ … whether their surprise was followed by delight or disapproval.

His mother was mild-mannered and proper. She had grown up in the Lowside, where blending into the crowd was a matter of survival. _The nail that sticks out gets hammered down_. Glory didn’t like to talk about it herself, but from the scuttlebutt it was easy to gather that House Lowside’s overseer—Henchman Jerry—was easily tipped into fits of cruelty. But under Sean’s laissez-faire approach to anything that didn’t concern the safety and production quality of his beloved forge, the Highside-Boxmen were free to be as rowdy and gregarious as they liked, as long as it didn’t affect their work.

Perhaps it wasn’t Alice that had such a strong orderly influence over the Loft-Boxmen. Maybe it was the view of the sky itself, with the eyes of the sun, moon or stars peering in on them at all hours of the day and night. But for whatever reason, Gaillard’s boisterousness made a big splash in their small pond, and he relished the attention.

And so, after months of settling into a comfortable routine, Gaillard felt a pang of worry when he saw André walk into the Loft one night, just as they were getting ready for bed. Was he going to end this perfect situation? Gaillard scrutinized him nervously as he approached. André’s hair was perked up high in the front, but his shoulders were slung back and relaxed—so he was excited, not angry or anxious.

André nodded to Henry’s father in greeting, and said his name in a warm and easy tone: “John.”

John nodded back. “What brings you here so late?”

“I’m going to take Gaillard to see… you know.” The conspiratorial smirk in his voice was plain to hear.

John raised his eyebrows. It was a noncommittal gesture—it showed no surprise, but mild disapproval. A look that said, _that’s none of my business_.

Little chills of excitement ran up Gaillard’s back. At first he’d thought that André’s “you know” might have referred to some sort of new training, a technical skill; but if it drew that sort of reaction from that unflappable man, it had to be something really good.

The gesture wasn’t lost on Henry, either. “I want to come too!” he chirruped.

“ _Bien sûr_.”

Henry didn’t understand André’s words—he wouldn’t have learned the Old Language in the Loft, they only spoke the Overlord’s language there, as was proper—but the amiable nod he paired with it was a clear invitation. He perked up, his heels tapping lightly against the side of the bed where he sat, feet eager to run straight into this tantalizing unknown danger.

At the sound of the Old Language, John’s brows drew down, expression crystallizing from disconnect into clear disapproval. He looked at Henry.

Henry’s feet stilled. “Can I go, Da?”

“We’ve talked about this,” was his only response, spoken in an even but firm tone.

Henry’s lips pressed together. He leaned forward, as if ready to spring out and run away. His father continued looking at him, impassive, waiting. For a moment they held their poses.

And then Henry’s eyebrows peaked in the middle, and he made a sharp sigh, his whole body sagging. “I shouldn’t,” he grumbled, his soft high voice heavy with all the crushing existential disappointment an 11-to-14 year-old can muster.

“Suit yourself,” André said, tossing his hair. “Yikes, you still coming?”

Gaillard nodded, a chortle of excitement beginning to flutter deep in his throat.

“ _Allons-y_ ,” André said, perhaps just a little louder than was really necessary, and tilted his head towards the doors, already turning. He walked out without sparing another look.

As he trotted out behind his brother, Gaillard looked back into the Loft sleeping quarters. John had moved to Henry’s side and laid one hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. Henry frowned and jerked his shoulder away, building up to a really satisfying dramatic sulk. John turned away and left him to it, smiling, shining with quiet pride.

As soon as they were in the hallway and out of hearing range, Gaillard was no longer able to contain his curiosity. He felt guilty about leaving Henry behind, but that feeling abated with every step he took. He was starting to feel a twinge of apprehension too: where could André be taking him that he wasn’t also bringing Antoine?

“What-is-it-what- _is_ -it-what- _IS_ -it?” he babbled.

André chuckled and didn’t answer, letting the mystery drag out for several more steps. Finally he let the words drop.

“It’s a cockfight.”

“Wha…?”

André’s cool demeanor fell away, and he grinned. He gesticulated as he walked, his words speeding up, as well as his feet. “Kind of a weird name, I guess. It _is_ a bit like when two young cocks try and impress a hen, but it’s not just some silly showing off, it takes skill and it’s… fun. And anybody can do it—cock, hen, epicene—all that matters is that you can fight… and you’re trying to impress everybody! And if you win, you win bragging rights for your whole House.”

Gaillard was a little taken aback by the deluge of words, but he kept up his pace. Those terms— _cock_ and _hen_ and _epicene_ —were given to the boxmen by the Doctor, assigned to individuals after physical examination… sometimes many physical examinations. They were used by the Doctor and the Overlord, and the other humans. But within the Houses, among the boxmen themselves, they were… kind of rude. (Among themselves, the boxmen used _man_ and _woman_ and _androgyne_ … and the two sets of categories didn’t always align.) Alluding to something that was private.

Certainly alluding to something that children shouldn’t concern themselves about. The Doctor had been confident enough in her assessment of Gaillard to have it printed on his very first identification card—jC, for juvenile cock (he’d tried to help out by telling her he was definitely a boy, but she’d still insisted in shining a flashlight in all his orifices)—but it wasn’t so clear-cut for everyone… and especially not the many who got classed as epicene. The sex categories weren’t definitively set until the Fledging, when all that year’s new adults lined up for the ceremony wearing ties, or lipstick, or nothing special.

Now, André was saying those words—words that had to do with _sex_ —to him, and so casually too… he really was being treated like a grown-up.

Pleased, Gaillard squared his small shoulders. “Have you ever won?”

André snorted and shook his head. “Nah, I haven’t tried fighting myself. I just like to watch.” And then, suddenly tilting his face away, he added, “And I always tell Antoine all about it.”

 _Antoine had never gone with? So it really is something dangerous,_ Gaillard thought, his excitement ramping up. He just nodded, playing it cool.

André continued, words tumbling out in a rush. “Like I was saying, anybody can try it, if they want. There are even two categories for size or, or weight… you know, to make the fights more fair: there’s heavyweight and bantam weight. I think the bantam weight’s more fun, myself. The smaller fighters, they have a lot of guts, and they’re smart. They get creative. Heavyweights, though… _euh_ … seems like they get used to relying on their strength all the time. By the time you get to the final rounds, it’s just a couple of big men slamming into each other—what’s interesting about that?”

Gaillard thought that sounded… _very_ interesting. _Weirdly_ interesting. In a way that made his guts feel… fuzzy? He was suddenly shy and embarrassed—so strongly that he had to remind himself that André couldn’t see his thoughts.

He didn’t have much time to mull over that surprising feeling, though. They had arrived.

They were in one of the massive assembly line rooms, far in one corner. In the opposite corner, a night shift was at work, the conveyer belts whirring and laying a blanket of indistinct noise over everything. On this side of the room, the drone was overcome by chatter—dozens, if not scores of boxmen, from all of the houses, milling about. They perched on high walkways, lined the edges of platforms, and stood on tip-toes to peer over the crowd.

Gaillard had barely had time to take in the visual clamor when a lone, amplified voice sounded out above the audible mess.

“Find your places! Starting soon!”

Gaillard looked up and saw the boxman who had made the announcement, standing on a high platform that offered a vantage point over the whole crowd, with a pilfered megaphone. From his position, Gaillard could only see their left side in silhouette. He sized them up briefly: nobody he had seen before… tall, looked to be _en mars_ … no, they had bright green hair but they had a human hand on this side at least, maybe partially _en avril_ like himself. By their thickly-muscled shoulder and square jaw, it was a man… _a cock_ , Gaillard thought, with a hint of smugness at even thinking the word. Had a surprisingly high-pitched voice for such a beefy guy, though.

André grasped Gaillard’s shoulder, just hard enough to get his attention. “Let’s get a better view,” he mouthed rather than trying to yell over the commotion.

They threaded their way under the walkways, emerging on the other side of the crowd. It was a little thinner here, and a little quieter, with the sound from across the room partially blocked out by powered-down equipment.

André poked Gaillard in the shoulder and then pointed at a line of people on an elevated walkway. “See there?”

Gaillard followed his finger and picked out the subject… a light-haired, broad-shouldered man he recognized from the Highside and from the forge, although he didn’t know him well.

André continued, mouth close at his ear. “That’s Coq au Vengeance. Represents our House. Not fighting tonight, though. He’s heavyweight, but I still like him—he puts on a good show.”

So, it seemed people got fighting names, like the way some people got work names. But if the Overlord picked the work names, who picked the fighting names? Did _they_ get to choose, themselves? The freedom of it! The edge of fear to Gaillard’s excitement was burning off, leaving only heady thrill.

André was scanning the crowd with purpose, craning his neck. He pointed again. “Look there! Haven’t seen her in a while…” To himself, in undertone, “Oh, wow, so that’s why. Oof, she’s tough.” And then his talon was in front of Gaillard’s face again, pointing. “See, with the children on either side? Another heavyweight fighter. That’s Coq au Vengeance’s arch-rival, Hammer-Hen!”

Once Gaillard knew where to look, she was easy to pick out of the crowd. Her high-coiffed crest rose above those around her, and she was nearly as wide as she was tall. As André had said, there was an adolescent flanking her on either side—big, sharp-taloned _en mars_ boxmen, like herself. And more soon to come, apparently: she was hugely pregnant.

A masculine voice boomed above the noise of the crowd. “Hammer-Hen!”

It was Coq au Vengeance – he must have spotted Hammer-Hen just after André had pointed her out. The spectators around him quieted their conversations and gawked at him.

André’s talons dug into Gaillard’s shoulder. He glanced up into his brother’s face and saw André’s eyes dart back and forth, transfixed, shining.

“Recruiting, _hein_? It got too difficult to face me alone?” Coq au Vengeance called to her.

Hammer-Hen responded in a heartbeat—“Naw, I’m just giving you a break!”—drawing whoops from the crowd around her. A murmur went through them, their words indistinct but their tone getting louder and more insistent. She held up a hand and shook her head with a coy smile, demurring—“I can’t, not right now”—but as their murmur reached a fever-pitch, a sly spark ignited in her eyes, and she cupped her hands around her mouth and crowed.

At her piercing, feral call, the crowd erupted in cheers, and Gaillard found himself cheering along with them. When the sound subsided a bit André muttered to him, “She used to be way louder than that.” But from the enthusiasm of the crowd, Gaillard would never have guessed her performance was anything less than unprecedented perfection.

The announcer’s voice barked out over the din. “Clear the middle! Starting now.”

Gaillard glanced up at the announcer again. Then he blinked, frowned, squinted. The person in the role had been swapped while he and André were making their way across the room.

But… wasn’t that the same voice from earlier? It looked like the same person as before, too: the same height, the same shade of hair in what looked to be the same style, and a human hand on the right side just as on the left. But… how had he mistaken this person for a man? They had the rounded jawline, the buxom chest and curving hip of a woman—of a hen, even.

Gaillard pulled at André’s sleeve. André bent down and turned up the volume in one of his ears to catch the question.

“The announcer…? Who’s that?”

“Oh! That’s Trip.”

“Trip and fall?” Gaillard spoke reflexively, parroting the phrase from incessant workplace safety lessons. That would be a frightening pseudonym, for sure.

André snorted with laughter, not unkindly. “Naw. Triple. _Trois fois_.” He held up three fingers.

Still not understanding, Gaillard took advantage of his smaller size to muscle closer to the center of the crowd, for a better vantage into the cleared center of the floor.

By that time the announcer had climbed down from the high overlook and was on the floor, turning, arms outstretched and megaphone pumping into the air, encouraging the crowd. Peeking between two spectators, Gaillard finally, briefly, got a clear look at them head-on.

Boxmen were generally round in body-shape, or else bell-shaped, or square. But Trip was… a rhomboid. Gaillard’s first assessment had been accurate, and his second assessment had been accurate too. All at once Gaillard caught the meaning of the name: Trip was male on the left side, female on the right, and must be registered as epicene—three sexes at the same time.

Trip gestured to the figure to thon’s left—a burly, classic _en mars_ man—eliciting applause and hoots from the crowd. “Representing the Annex…” thon drew out the pause, “… Mars!”

Mars strutted a self-assured circle. When he turned his back, Gaillard’s eyes popped—he had a tail, his overalls cut to accommodate long, dark-green feathers.

Gaillard glanced back at André. He winked and mouthed the words, _Mars? So creative_ , and rolled his eyes. Then he pointed, eyebrows raised in urging, and Gaillard turned back to the event.

“New in the ring! Representing the Loft… the Sparrow Sauvage!”

 _The Loft?_ Gaillard had to peek between backs to get a good look at the second fighter. They may have been bigger than Henry and John, but still well within the bounds of a typical, petite _en janvier_ boxman. They didn’t even have the robotic augmented ears of a forge-worker. Mars dwarfed them. They didn’t look intimidated, though, standing with feet planted and their short-fingered, blue-black hands balled in fists and high in the air.

“You know the rules,” Trip called over the crowd. “No biting. No targeting organic eyes. No injuries that can’t be blamed on work.” Thon turned to climb back up to the overlook.

André leaned forward and tugged on Gaillard’s collar, cupping his hand to speak into his ear again. “You heard? _Organic eyes._ Used to be _no eyes_. But one time Hammer-Hen punched Coq au Vengeance so hard his robotic eye popped out.” André’s hand mimicked a globe-shape popping away from his face and flying across the room. “He said that was the least painful part of that punch.”

The noise of the crowed ebbed and flowed, swirling around the metal supports of the walkways, as Trip reached thon’s perch. Thon held up one hand and closed it in a fist, as if pulling together threads of attention from each person gathered.

With the other hand, thon raised the megaphone to thon’s lips.

_“Commence!”_

The crowd surged forward, jostling, closing in before Gaillard’s face, pressing him backwards against André’s belly. He forced his way forward again, threading small gaps between bodies and employing an elbow-in-the-butt to a particularly stubborn spectator, and finally got one long unobstructed view of the pair in combat.

Sparrow Sauvage danced backwards, light and fluid as a scrap of plastic sheeting caught in a draft, as Mars pressed forward, feet falling and planting heavily under his bulk. Entranced, Gaillard watched the muscles in his thick arms and torso tensing with every swing of a fist or jab of a talon.

As much as the fight had seemed to be hopelessly unbalanced between the returning heavyweight and the newcomer bantam-weight, the battle went on and on, with barely a blow landed on either side. Mars was starting to sweat heavily and wheeze. Sparrow Sauvage, meanwhile, was panting but fresh-faced, and beginning to smile with every successful dodge.

Gaillard remembered André’s words— _The smaller fighters… they’re smart. They get creative_ —and ventured a quick look back at his brother, to show he understood, to show he appreciated.

Suddenly the crowd convulsed. A thunder-like crackle of caught breath and yelps of surprise and encouragement rippled through it.

As the people around him pressed forward again, closing in impossibly tight, Gaillard caught one quick glimpse of what was happening in the ring. Mars was no longer gaining ground, but turning, grunting in befuddlement and frustration. Sparrow Sauvage whipped past Gaillard’s small window of vision, feet stumbling, moving low … both hands gripping Mars’ tailfeathers.

Something happened.

Some sort of explosion—not of machinery or heat or chemicals, but of pure emotion, of sudden panic, of bodies in motion rushing to get away.

Gaillard was bowled over, the floor hitting his back and knocking him breathless, and for a moment the whole world was 90 degrees from where it should have been. Then his shirt tightened around his armpits and the back of his neck… talons fisted in the front of his shirt, lifting, and attached to the fist was a strong arm and a whining grunt of exertion and a word called out, _RUN_.

The world righted itself, and the fist was attached to his brother, and then André’s hand gripped his and they ran, washed along by a tide of people that began to peter out as soon as they spilled out of the workroom, escapees vanishing down hallways and swallowed in the darkness.

They were back at the Highside bedrooms before they slowed down.

Gaillard leaned with hands on knees, wheezing, until he could put together enough breath to form a scaffold of words around his racing thoughts. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” André rasped back at him, his eyes shining with adrenaline. “When it goes down like that you don’t ask questions. You just run.”

Regaining his senses a bit, Gaillard fully registered where he was and thought to look for his mother, expecting to see her aiming a disapproving glare at him, like John had directed at André. But Glory was sound asleep, Stéphanie and Édouard curled at her sides.

Looking around the room, he became aware of a couple of others also short-of-breath, standing or sitting at some distance, backs or sides discreetly turned.

_Others._

“André! _André_!” Gaillard panted, “What about Sparrow?” He gasped in sudden realization and horror, and hissed through his jagged teeth, “ _What about Harmmer-Hen_?”

André squeezed his shoulder in reassurance. “They’ll be fine. Everyone who goes to these things has a plan for getting out.”

“ _Buh-uhw- I_ didn’t!” Gaillard yelped.

“You didn’t need to. Keeping you safe was _my_ plan.”

Antoine was propped up on an elbow in bed. His eyes slid between his two brothers, to the others who had just entered, and back to Gaillard.

Gaillard turned to him and raised his hands in front of his face, fingers curled, wanting to share the whole shocking, world-expanding experience, but not knowing where to start. But Antoine just smirked with his eyes and made a gesture at him and André, a short-hand he had developed so that he wouldn’t have to waste precious words on something—he had explained—he had cause to say often. The gesture meant: you’re a couple of fools.

“Oh hey, Yikes,” André said, ignoring Antoine’s gesture and catching at Gaillard’s already-hopelessly-stretched-out shirt. “I took you tonight for a special reason. Do you know what that is?”

“’Cause I’m old enough now…?” Gaillard ventured.

“Well, yeah. And…”

“… There was a bantam-weight competing?” André nodded in encouragement. “… And you like watching the bantam-weights best?”

André shook his head. “It was a bantam and a heavy-weight. Because I wanted to teach you something. Have you figured it out?”

“… Because… uh… I’m a little guy? And you wanted to show me that a little guy can fight back against a big guy?”

André pursed his lips. “You’re still just a kid.”

_Ouch._

But André’s next words erased the sting.

“You’re growing yet. When you’re an adult, you’re going to be a big guy around here. But when you’ve got all the strength and all the status, you can’t let that get to your head, you know? You have to stay smart.”

Gaillard wasn’t entirely sure he understood, but he nodded. André nodded back, satisfied.

“Staying here tonight?” Antoine asked.

“I… uh…” Gaillard’s voice dipped into a vocal fry of uncertainty and then shot high with excitement. “I gotta tell Henry!”

Refusing André’s offer of an escort, Gaillard made his way from the Highside to the Loft. It was a path so familiar that his eyes would barely have registered it on any given ordinary day. But with excitement still lighting up his brain, his nerves gone incandescent, every corner meant a concealed threat and every shadow a stalking danger… Until he was running, full-throttle, all the way until he entered the doors of the Loft.

The light were all turned off, so the room was only lit by a thin glaze of starlight. His heavy breathing filled up his ears until he thought the sound must fill the whole room. He stood still for a few minutes, willing his heartbeat to slow, looking around the room for harried stragglers like himself, like those that had entered the Highside… but whether they had arrived earlier and already melted into the mundanity of the setting, or whether they were still somewhere out hidden in the factory, there was no sign of them.

Climbing the short ladder to the bunk he shared with Henry, Gaillard heard John’s voice from the lower bunk, soft and measured but distinct in the stillness of the sleeping room.

“Gaylord.”

Gaillard paused mid-step, downy feathers on the back of his arm rising in anticipation of a scolding. “Yessir?”

“Glad to see you back safe. Stories can wait until tomorrow. Okay?”

Gaillard’s feathers smoothed back down. “Yessir.”

Henry was lying flat on his back in the upper bunk, eyes open, practically vibrating with suppressed suspense. “Well?” he breathed.

“Your Da says I can’t tell you til tomorrow,” Gaillard whispered, perversely glad to be able to keep his stories to himself for a few more hours and prolong his friend’s agony of curiosity. Henry bared the sharp edges of his teeth in petulance, but the only sound he made in response was a near-silent hiss.

Curling closer to him, Gaillard whispered close in his ear. “Hey. Your Da said… Said you’d talked about it. Before tonight. You never told me.”

“Nuh-uh, not... I don’t know what you did tonight. Me and Da, we talked about…” He paused.

Gaillard felt Henry’s arm move, pinned down by his side, and shifted so Henry could get it free. Gaillard felt Henry’s shoulder rotating, his hand raising… and, rolling back slightly, just barely in the dim light he saw Henry’s hands both lifted in the air, pulled back near his face so he was gazing at them, blue-black shapes against the blue-black of the high ceiling.

“I’m both-handed,” Henry whispered. He didn’t need to say more.

Gaillard caught his breath. All at once he understood the situation, and the truncated dialogue from earlier in the evening. Just when he thought the night could hold no more surprises, he discovered his best friend held a secret just as life-changing as the existence of a covert fighting ring.

Humans were right-handed… usually. Boxmen were left-handed… usually.

It was a means of safety that nature granted the boxmen… in addition to the regulatory and behavioral and design measures that the Overlord had put in place. Because the weapons that they produced in the factory, the lasers and gas guns and grappling hook launchers and crossbows, were mostly made with distinctly right-handed grips.

But somebody had to do quality control. Somebody had to test weapons.

Henchman Jerry oversaw the testing range. He had a dominant left hand himself, and so he could manage that minority of weaponry testing himself. But to get the majority done, he employed a small, close-knit team of right-handed boxmen whose loyalty and dedication was unimpeachable. And that was not for Jerry’s safety, Gaillard had been told—it was for theirs.

Boxmen couldn’t handle violence, not the way humans could. It was just a part of their nature—everybody in the factory knew that, and the Henchmen reminded them often. A little roughhousing, hand-to-hand tussles, that was one thing; but the destructive power of something like a bomb was too much for the average boxman to handle. That power could overcome their wills, disrupt their thoughts, make them crave it… over time, they were told, it could drive them mad.

And so, those who were born with a strong right hand were identified as early as their tendency became clear, and watched closely by the henchman—and through them, the Overlord. They had to demonstrate a sober mind and reliable good judgement. Being on the testing range team was risky, but it carried great status.

A right-handed boxman who didn’t have a suitable personality and mind for the testing range had few options, since they wouldn’t fit in with the clockwork-coordinated assembly line or forge. They ended up in one of the basement roles: laundry, or worse, trash duty… with the rest of the unthrifty.

To have both hands strong, though… that gave Henry a rare control over his future. If he was mindful of his manual technique—and he had been, flawlessly, if his best friend hadn’t even realized he was ambidextrous—he could fall back into a comfortable mundane path, working the forge… or even the assembly line, if he never grew big enough to keep up in handling the heavy equipment, there was no shame in that. But if he was mindful of everything he did, he could rise to greatness. He couldn’t throw away that chance for the sake of entertainment.

It was so many revelations for one night that Gaillard was sure he would never fall asleep.

Until he was woken up. By Henry holding his nose shut.

He gasped and slapped away his hands, sitting upright. The moon had risen, filling the room with a pearlescent, slippery-looking glow. Hours must have passed.

“You could’a just poked me,” Gaillard sputtered.

“I did,” Henry hissed back. “And I shook you too! And you just kept sleeping and started going blaug-wahw-aulhg-hwg,” he rocked his torso mockingly. Gaillard punched him in the arm.

“Boys!” John warned from below.

Henry crawled to the side of the bunk and started down the ladder. His voice, directed into the lower bunk, filtered to the upper. “We’re just going over to quarantine for a minute, Da.”

Gaillard looked across the room. The door was closed, and the thinnest hint of light showed under the door—there really was somebody inside.

He followed Henry down the ladder, and the two tiptoed across the floor.

Approaching the door, they met someone coming out—another Loft resident, one Gaillard recognized by sight but not by name.

Henry addressed them in an undertone. “The person who just got taken in there… are they going to be okay…?” And in an even softer voice, “… was that Dana?”

“Thon had a fall at the assembly line. Concussion. Full recovery expected, but needs rest. Doesn’t need visitors,” they murmured back, in a voice that wasn’t without warmth but brooked no disagreement either.

Looking past them, as if he could see through the door, Gaillard had a realization. Henry knew everyone in the Loft by their given name, but—if his guess was correct—Gaillard knew this person by a different name. Without conscious thought, he murmured, “Sparrow Sauvage.”

Moonlight glinted off the caregiver’s smile. “… Okay. Five minutes. But thon’s got unaugmented ears, so make sure you’re quiet.”

Henry and Gaillard sidled into the room, one close behind the other.

The person was laid out on a cot, covered by a thin blanket, with a washcloth over thon’s forehead and eyes. Seeing thon so still, when thon had been full of vitality and athletic feats just a few hours earlier, was jarring… But as the two boys approached, thon responded, lifting a hand and pulling the corner of the washcloth off thon’s organic eye. The robotic eye thon left covered, so that its automatic-focus function wouldn’t make any noise inside thon’s skull.

Recognizing that the person was exactly who he’d thought it was, Henry’s lips parted, his mouth so dry that Gaillard heard the movement rather than saw it. But he didn’t say anything. Dana had begun the night in the Loft—thon hadn’t been scheduled to work the night shift. The mystery just kept deepening, and Henry was lost.

Gaillard knew what to say, though.

“Sparrow Sauvage,” he whispered. “You were awesome.”

He put his talons in Dana’s hand. Thon squeezed them, tightly, and closed thon’s eye again, and smiled.


	4. musical number

The main assembly line room was festooned with green and dotted with shining jewel-tone red; the platforms and catwalks were packed with hundreds of boxmen. Every conveyer belt had been silenced and stilled; out across the factory, the forges and labs and testing range also sat empty. Everyone had been brought to this one room. This was their holiday.

Gaillard, Henry, and John had settled in a spot close enough to the heavy double-doored main entrance to get a good look at the Overlord when he made his grand entrance, but not so close that they were taking the best vantage points from others. There was a good chance they’d be directed to move before then, though: to where, depended on whether the day’s mood was to focus on the sound balance or aesthetics of the crowd.

Already humming in anticipation, Gaillard scanned the room for others he knew. There was older sister Avril and her husband with their newest babies, given a prime spot on the floor by the main entrance: that space was always reserved for young mothers and fathers with small children, so they’d be the first to see the Overlord and the first to be seen by him.

André was not far, killing time with a gaggle of adult men younger than him; they roughhoused, jostling against each other as they waited for the rehearsal to start. Antoine was on a far balcony, set apart high above the working floor, with Henchman Alice and a handful of other boxmen who were sick, or elderly, or otherwise unable to sing and move about the factory; they were brought to watch.

He spotted Hammer-Hen too—he had never learned her given name, and never asked about it, he didn’t want to lose the mystique of knowing her by her chosen fighting name—standing against a far wall with her family. The twin children that had been unborn at the time of that first cockfight were toddling about and shouting, their yells lost in the din of so many voices; she watched them through half-lidded eyes, comfortable in the knowledge that another attentive parent would catch them if either threatened to tip over the railing.

Gaillard’s mother stood near her. Stéphanie and Édouard were there side-by-side, looking around eagerly but on their best behavior; they had attended these performances with the Overlord before, but this was the first time they’d fully join in. They’d already had plenty of singing experience at the assembly line: songs carried the working contingent through their long, tedious workdays, and was used as a teaching tool besides.

“I’ve got a screwdriver,” one assembly line worker might start the call.

“Whoa! Oh! Tell me all about it,” the other workers would respond.

And the caller would describe their work, joining in a long tradition of friendly competition to improvise creative lyrics, to deliver a unique version of the melody, to convey the most information in the clearest way within the bounds of the meter.

Or, sometimes, an assembly line worker would call a lyric that was less practical. “I’ve got a good man,” a woman might call, giving her hips a saucy shake while her hands continued their prescribed motions. “Whoa! Oh! Tell me all about it!” The response would be mixed with cheers, laughter and hoots, as some workers relished bawdy lyrics and others gasped disapprovingly and dived to cover children's ears.

Close by on the catwalk, a movement in the crowd caught Gaillard’s attention; a young woman was nudging through the crowd towards him—no, she was looking at John. Gaillard remembered seeing her at her fledging ceremony a few years ago; she also worked at the Forge, but at a station removed from his. She was tall, from the Annex, her strong _en mars_ features touched by a _février_ softness, her long pastel-green hair plaited into a neat, thick braid, the soft hairs at the nape of her neck grading into downy feathers that ran down both arms.

She reached out and touched John’s hand, just for a moment, as she arrived. Then John turned to Gaillard. “You know Iris?” Gaillard nodded affirmation; she inclined her head towards him in greeting, and then at Henry. Gaillard felt a sudden chilliness at his side, a tension rather than a temperature; Henry had turned his face away.

Looking back at Iris, Gaillard just barely caught an expression of concern flicker across her face. Then she smiled, and leaned forward, conspiratorial. “I wonder how the Overlord will do today,” she whispered, her eyes darting from the crowd, to Gaillard, to Henry. “Last session he was sounding rough. Going off-key. I didn’t hear it myself at the time, I’m not the most musical,” she lowered her eyelashes. “Layne told us so.”

Gaillard’s eyes widened. Layne was the fourth henchman, the overseer of the Annex. He was also in charge of the assembly lines—although, even when he’d accompanied his mother in her work there, Gaillard had rarely seen him: the established assembly line workers taught the work to the new; and in contrast to Sean’s love of the forge, Layne seemed to try to avoid his responsibilities at the assembly line whenever possible. Gaillard knew him from these rehearsals, in which he commanded attention with his sweeping hands and strong baritone, and from the performances, when he attempted to direct from the sidelines as the whole company got swept up in the song. He was cantankerous; sure, that was evident to anyone. At times would carelessly sling his words about like dirty rags. And, if he stretched his imagination, Gaillard could imagine the henchmen joking about the Overlord among themselves; jealousy could make a person act like that. But a henchman speaking poorly of the Overlord… to the boxmen? He was flabbergasted. What type of life did they lead over in the Annex!

Seeing Gaillard’s reaction, Iris focused on him, her eyes sparkling. “This isn’t Layne’s first henchman position, you know. Not by far! He said that when he’s conducted under other overlords…” her voice muted even more, so that even Gaillard and Henry had to lean in to hear her, “… when they’ve struggled with hitting the notes, with getting the volume, he’s even sung in their place!”

Gaillard’s mouth dropped open. “H-How?”

Iris giggled at his shock, and raised a hand to cover her mouth. Her eyes darted to John. Following her gesture, so did Gaillard’s; surely he’d tell them to stop their disrespectful gossiping. But John’s hand was moving away from his ear; he had discreetly turned up the volume. Although his posture was prim and his eyes were looking out over the factory, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

“I supposed he would have just… followed along behind, singing, and the overlord would… pretend like he was still singing.” She looked to Henry, her expression shining with delight at the opportunity to impress, edged with craving for approval.

Henry turned and walked away.

Gaillard blinked at his friend’s back. Glanced back at Iris. She didn’t look surprised, the way he felt; she looked deflated. Gaillard scurried after Henry.

Henry settled in beside a gaggle of nearly-adolescent children further down the railing. The top of his head barely cleared the metal bar, and he folded his fingers over it and rested his cheek against his fingers, eyes unfocused, morose. Gaillard mimicked his pose, leaning to rest his chin atop the beam.

“What’s up with you?” He felt no need to mince words with his best friend. “She was just talking. She’s nice!”

Henry, blinked, didn’t look at Gaillard, and mumbled, “Watch them. You’ll see.”

Gaillard frowned, but he did as Henry said.

He didn’t see anything that explained Henry’s sudden sour mood. Iris nudged the claws of one of her feet against the metal of the catwalk and said something to John; he tilted his chin down and responded, both of them inaudible in the general din.

Then John reached into his shirt-pocket, the pocket that held his identification card. His hand emerged with fingers pinched together. Iris held out one of her hands, close to her chest, talons cupped softly. John pressed his fingers into her palm, gently but firmly, and the green color in his cheeks deepened. Iris smiled, and as she turned her head to look at him, her talons uncurled just enough for Gaillard to see what was in her hand: a single raisin. Then she closed her fingers over it.

Suddenly he understood. Many things, all at once.

He’d seen young men fresh off their fledgling ceremonies courting young women with offerings of food. Of course, any woman could pull any item from the food line herself at any time; so it followed that a proper courtship had to be about the show… Why else do it openly, at a time when the dining hall was full of people? One suitor had smuggled a gouge from a workshop and used it to carve a pattern into a carrot. Another had built a stack of cookies and carried it balanced on the palm of one hand, as his friends had whooped and hooted to distract him. Another stole an item off his friend’s plate and presented it to his sweetheart with a mischievous flourish, making her laugh.

But this simple, understated question, and its unspoken answer… this was courtship too.

And fresh off that revelation, Gaillard understood something new about his best friend’s father.

Gaillard’s own father had been old when he had known him, at least from his child perspective; he had parented children that had fledged and were about to start families of their own. After losing him, Gaillard’s mother hadn’t found, or even looked for, a second husband. That was not surprising. Boxmen’s hearts were simple compared to human hearts, maybe; they only had room for one lover.

John had been his fathers’ friend, and so John must have been old too: as a child, that logic followed naturally. But John, so by-the-book, would have paired up and started a family right after the fledging ceremony presented and introduced him to all the hens his age. How long had he been able to live as a couple, before his wife had died in giving birth to Henry: a year? Less than that? To Gaillard and Henry, he was authority; but to other adults, he must still be young—too young to be alone for so long.

The change in perspective made Gaillard dizzy. But he had a task at hand.

“But this is great!” he squealed at Henry. “You’ll be a big brother! Don’t you know what that means? You’ll get to take care of the little ones, and tell them what to do, and give them silly new names, and…”

Henry gave him a cool side-eyed glance. “That’s what you do?”

The words backed up in Gaillard’s throat. He’d been so wrapped up in relishing his new life in the Loft, in learning the ropes at the factory, that he had barely even seen his younger siblings in weeks, or months. André and Antoine had always been there for him—picking on him, sure, but supporting and teaching him. His life was so different than theirs, and he hadn’t ever slowed down long enough to realize it. Here he was lecturing Henry, when he didn’t know how to be a big brother himself.

He opened his mouth, trusting the right words to come out; or at least, some sort of words.

But as quickly as a white-hot spark in iron is extinguished by a plunge into water, Gaillard’s train of thought was cut off by a groundswell of cheers.

Henchman Layne had arrived.

The human cut a striking figure, looming over the boxmen on either side of him. He wasn’t burly like Henchman Sean, though, but willowy, almost gaunt. His pure silver-white hair was swept back neatly; his eyes were perpetually weary.

He raised a hand. There was an instantaneous quieting of the hubbub, a sub-audible whirring of mechanical components as all boxman eyes moved to focus on him.

“Hey darlings… or whatever,” he drawled, subverting the line that the Overlord would say to announce his arrive and signal the start of the performance.

A lone voice sounded somewhere among the crowd, creaky, mimicking Layne’s tone like a worn-out echo: “Hey, asshole.”

A susurration of shock rippled through the crowd; in patches around the room, Lowside-Boxmen cowered reflexively, Loft-Boxmen compulsively reached for the volume controls on their ears, Highside-Boxmen glanced between themselves with hastily-concealed grins; Annex-Boxmen looked smug.

Layne only rolled his eyes, with the same natural grace of all his movements, an exaggerated gesture of jaded surrender that could be read across the room. “Right. Let’s get this over with.” He pursed his lips, scanning the room with a detached air. “We’re doing the main number today. You already know the lyrics. And if you don’t, you will soon enough.”

He raised a hand, the fluid beauty of the gesture contrasting with the dry brittleness of his words, drawing the attention of the room like a lightning rod. His fingers bent, prodded at the air; and from the multitude of throats scattered around the room, the first note swelled out.

Layne’s expression transformed. He closed his eyes, turning his head this way and that to catch reverberations and nuances. One hand pointed at a section of the overlook, and then grasped at the air as if moving a gossamer curtain from across his face; a knot of deep-voiced boxmen switched places with a cluster of sopranos.

Layne’s hand lofted into the air, like a soaring bird on an updraft; the gesture prompted the rise and fall of a scale. He pointed, pinning a section of older men, and then drew his open palm to his chest, closing his fingers, encouraging a louder and more robust tone from them.

He strode around the room, kneading at the air to signal adjustments in the singers’ positions, tones, volume.

Finally ready to move on, he called out the first line of the song—the Overlord’s line—his delivery perfunctory. “I think they’re taking us for granted.”

The prompt filled the room with its response; a swell of disbelief, of horror, of mockery for those faceless, thankless customers. This part of the song allowed for the most improvisation; this part was the most fun. Layne let it go on for a few seconds and then moved his hand in a minimizing gesture. Later on, the Overlord would let the reaction go on much longer, basking in it. He always did.

Layne moved his hand in a chopping motion, a familiar gesture that meant he wanted to skip ahead to the chorus. “What would they be without us?” he called, his voice now full and rich.

“What would they be?” came the echo.

“We built the weapons in their hands  
We built the ground on which they stand…”

Layne continued to move about the room as he sung, his hands never resting, prompting adjustments.

“What would they be without us?  
Helpless! Lost!”

Reaching the section of railing where Gaillard and Henry stood, he pointed at them, his hands speaking sentences through a series of gestures: _You. The short one. I can’t see you. Move out here._

Henry trudged to stand on the railing’s stair, his mouth singing obediently but his feet grumbling. Gaillard followed, belting the notes to make up for Henry’s subdued performance.

Layne waved, cutting off the singing. “Someone’s sticking out…” He pointed at Gaillard and Henry. “You two! Let me hear each of you. Alone. Quick.”

Nearby boxmen turned to look. Further out, the performers simply waited; these sorts of pauses and micro-adjustments weren’t rare.

Henry’s eyes widened, his face flushing at the sudden attention. Gaillard saw his knees tremble. But he sang obediently, his voice not terribly strong but perfectly on key, a sweet boy-soprano tone.

Layne nodded with a grimace of satisfaction. At the unspoken praise, Henry grinned and looked at his feet.

Layne nodded at Gaillard.

As Gaillard sang, his focus narrowed, folded inward, his thoughts wrapped up in the sound of his own voice, in the feeling of it in his chest and throat… and suddenly, his imagination blossomed. He saw Layne following behind the Overlord, singing the Overlord’s part… no… he saw himself. Gaillard heard his own voice leading, filling the space. He felt the power of the boxmen’s collective voices buoying him, felt the incandescent heat of their admiration lighting his skin from the inside…

He felt a small nudge from Henry, telling him to stop singing.

Layne’s expression wasn’t displeased. But it wasn’t impressed either. It was almost sardonic… and, even worse than that—Gaillard felt, a knot forming in his belly—pitying.

“You’ve got plenty of oomph, that’s for sure,” he said. “But your voice is all over the place right now, isn’t it? Once that settles in, you’ll have a place with my strongest singers, I’d bet. But until then… just stay here, no sound, move your mouth, and look good. And stand behind your short friend there; you’re too tall.”

He turned away too quickly to see Gaillard’s jaw drop.

“Second verse!” Layne called. Everyone sang.

Gaillard sang. He sang even louder than before, indignation swelling in his gut and making his voice huge and wild.

Layne stopped the singing, the sweep of his hand as sharp as the arc of a scythe. He turned on Gaillard. His voice was quiet. Controlled.

“I haven’t choreographed any pratfalls for this performance. …Yet. Do you want to fall down those stairs in the third verse? I’ll make it happen.”

Gaillard glared back at him. He could feel the eyes of boxmen on either side, up and down the railings, fixed on him, their breathless focus. It wasn’t the good warm attention they had given him in his imagination, but it was so much better than nothing.

He felt Henry’s elbow again. Saw Henry’s knees start to tremble again, in earnest.

Bitter indignation sat like a wad of dry oatmeal at the base of Gaillard’s throat, choking him. He nodded.

Layne nodded in turn, a brief formal type of gesture. And the rehearsal resumed, as if nothing had happened.

“Without a prayer, without a doubt  
What would they be without us?  
Let’s hope they never find out.”

The song culminated on a triumphant, ominous note.

“Take it from the top,” Layne called. And they did.

Halfway through the first verse, Gaillard lifted his eyes from the ground, with an effort like lifting a stout metal rod in the forge, and looked around him. He really was taller than the children he’d been playing with.

He left Henry’s side, without a backward glance, and wove through the crowd. They ignored him. It didn’t matter; he wasn’t supposed to be singing anyway.

He reached his goal: the group of André and the young men. One or two glanced at him. André squeezed his shoulder, but said nothing; his mouth was too full of the call-and-response of the Overlord’s lyrics.

There came a pause in the singing, as Layne focused on balancing the voices of a few women on the far side of the room.

“You know,” Gaillard started, wincing at his voice—had it really whined and cracked like this the whole time?—“Layne’s worked with lots of other overlords before he came here. And if those overlords ever couldn’t keep up with the singing, Layne would do it for them.”

“Oh?” said André, “That’s too funny.”

“Who told you that?” one of his friends asked. His demeanor was genuinely curious, not mocking; it gave Gaillard some comfort. He pointed at Iris.

“Hey!” the young man squinted. “She and what’s-his-name, next to her, they look kinda… is she getting together with that little _en janvier_ cock?”

Another one of the young men snickered. “You think? Isn’t she kind of a lot of hen for him?”

His words sent an uncomfortable, nameless prickling down the back of Gaillard’s neck. He looked to André. But André had turned his face away; the feathers on the back of his arm had fluffed. Gaillard turned to the one who had spoke, and saw a blush high in his cheeks. He tried to put together words to ask what he meant.

He got no opportunity. The Overlord had arrived.

They performed.


	5. notes / character list / glossary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case this reference section is helpful! I'll be updating the character list and glossaries as I add more chapters.

theory that Lord Boxman (/the boxmen generally in this story) are part turaco ("banana-eater"): http://perpetuallurkernazanin.tumblr.com/post/180135267130/ok-ko-theory-chicken-and-snake-species-diagnosis

 

**Cast of characters**

_Lord Boxman’s family_  
mother: Glory  
older sisters: Celine (meaning: sky/heaven) and Avril (April/blossoming flowers)  
older brothers: André/Dré (manly) and Antoine/Tony (praiseworthy/valuable beyond measure)  
BM himself: Gaillard/Gaylord (joyful/high-spirited/boisterous), aka Guy, aka Yikes  
younger siblings: Stéphanie and Édouard

 

[Carine Juwelle](https://carinejuwelleblog.tumblr.com/) made this impressive (and TBH helpful to me) diagram of Gaillard's family tree!

 

 

Note: Originally in the story, Gaillard's father had two bird hands and his mother carried the piebald gene. I switched those characteristics between them since posting, and the chart reflects the changes. Sorry about that! A hazard of doing worldbuilding on the fly. ^_^``

_other boxmen_  
Dominique (a unisex name; meaning: owned by a lord)  
Henry – Gaillard’s best friend  
John - Henry’s father  
Trip - MC of cockfights  
cockfighters: "Coq au Vengeance", "Hammer-Hen", Mars, Dana aka "the Sparrow Sauvage"  
Iris - John's second wife / Henry's stepmother

_humans_  
the Overlord  
the Doctor  
four henchmen:  
\- Sean: overseer of house Highside / the forge  
\- Alice: overseer of house Loft / computer programming / the kitchen  
\- Jerry: overseer of house Lowside / product testing / trash collection  
\- Layne: overseer of house Annex / assembly lines / conducts and leads musical numbers

 

More notes on names:

Gaillard is pronounced with a long i sound, “GUY-yahr”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UngWsx2OWPU

Besides meaning “joyful” or “boisterous”, a gaylord is a type of bulk shipping crate: http://www.airseacontainers.com/blog/what-is-a-gaylord-box/

A glory box is aka. a hope chest, bottom drawer, trousseau or dowry chest

The name Henry refers to two IRL historical figures: Henry “Box” Brown, an abolitionist / former enslaved man who became famous for mailing himself to freedom in a crate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Box_Brown), and Henry Ford who popularized assembly line factories / mass production (Ford was also a notorious anti-semite BTW; but I mention him for the link to factories)

The first four boxmen were named Janvier (m), Fevrier (f), Mars (m), and Avril (f) – these are the first four months of the year in French

“Sauvage” means wild; “Coq au Vengeance” is a pun on coq au vin

 

 **glossary of French terms used**  
(this article has been helpful: https://www.fluentu.com/blog/french/french-filler-words/)

hein = huh  
felicitations = congratulations  
d’accord = okay  
alors = well then  
mon soleil = my sunshine  
bien sûr = of course / certainly  
allons-y = let’s go  
euh = uh / um  
trois fois = times three  
commence = start  
ma mère = my mother  


 

**more on lore terms and concepts  
**

thon/thon's/thonself = IRL vintage gender-neutral pronoun; coined in 1858 and more-or-less popularly known until 1961  
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/third-person-gender-neutral-pronoun-thon

unthrifty = Drawn from IRL poultry husbandry. It refers to a chicken who is unhealthy in an unspecified way: failing to thrive, not putting on weight, not grooming itself well, etc. For the boxmen under the Overlord, it may refer to any number of disparate situations; from a chronic disease to depression to laziness to mourning in a way/timeframe that is not deemed proper.

typical boxmen “looks”—named after one of the first four boxmen  
en janvier = dark green with some blue-black; features lean human; small crest; small stature —house is the Loft (eg: Henry)  
en fevrier = light green; features lean avian; curly or wavy hair, no crest; medium stature —house is the Lowside (eg: Glory)  
en mars = bright green; features lean avian; strong crest; tall stature —house is the Annex (eg: Hammer-Hen)  
en avril = bright green, piebaldism* common; features lean human; strong crest; medium stature —house is the Highside (eg: Gaillard’s father)

*Although this website is about pigeons, scroll to the bottom of this page for photos of people with piebaldism, as well as a variety of piebald animals: http://mumtazticloft.com/m_baldheadpied.asp

Information on chicken sex assignment:  
https://www.mypetchicken.com/backyard-chickens/chicken-help/How-do-you-tell-if-a-baby-chick-is-female-or-male-H22.aspx  
“Our experts "vent sex" baby chicks. Vent sexing means they look at tiny differences in the birds' cloaca. (That's a fancy word for "bird butt.") You would think there would just be two shapes, one for male and one for female, but there are actually 15 different shapes in chickens. It's definitely hard to tell the difference, even for experts with many years of experience. It's considered more of an art than a science.”  
  
gynandromorphy chickens: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/03/10/every-cell-in-a-chicken-has-its-own-male-or-female-identity/#.XKgmpWh7nIU  
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100315-half-male-half-female-chickens/

 

**Author's Note:**

> Much gratitude to my beta reader 3ff3rviskus!  
> My inbox is open at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/perpetuallurkernazanin  
> My Discord handle is Nazanin#0889  
> If you ever have requests for me to tag for something, or heavy thoughts/feelings about something in the story, or want to talk for another reason, please feel free to contact me directly.


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